


and if it hurts it could only get worse

by londondungeon2



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Blood and Injury, Character Study, Denial of Feelings, Enemies to not-yet-Lovers, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24557524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/londondungeon2/pseuds/londondungeon2
Summary: An enemy is almost a lover.
Relationships: Dib & Zim (Invader Zim), Tak/Zim (Invader Zim)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	and if it hurts it could only get worse

She has waited for this, resenting the lengthy progress, forever. Yet having it now, she wants to drag it out. How unusual and saccharine is her almost-heart, Tak thinks as her third Pak leg coils up like a black mamba and impales magenta fabric. 

To ponder, it all decimals down to this - the roaring passage through space, tiny blitzs of electricity, nights spent reconstructing a minimal ship. It narrows down to three points puncturing his uniform and a small chance trimpuhs. Tak is usually bitter over victories that are won by luck, it feels cheap. Yet, here she stands, having only just managed to slip off from the attack to drag Zim through metal, then gravel, then mud, on planet Dirt.

Fulfillment swells, so much stronger and worther of being an Irken. She should deliver the final blow, now with his skin exposed and Pak useless. And yet, she puts a single hand on his face.

His teeth, gritted and snapped tight together, interest her. He must have bitten through enemies, literal and metaphorical with those sawtooth enamels, like a shark with a flourishing head rocking back and forth. Tiny dribbles of salvia touch the ground. With a ferocity, she pushes deeper her thumb under the upper lip. Yes. YES. He must have bitten through each social platform and onto the rungs of ladders. The same teeth that spit vicious insults clouded with stupid and pride grimace under her glove, silenced.

She studies his eyes next, finger still harsh on his mouth. All the little bulges and lines of his fangs pulse, probably wanting to insult her now. The back of his head is pressed coarse to a metal structure. His eyes wince and wink in pain but refuse to close. Underneath them, a thunderstorm of insectual, metal legs scurry around like a swarm of popping air. 

A sensation roils (again!) in her to deliver the last stab with her own unbridled Pak. Finally, the playwright can release the pen and the audience can go home. But, she is caught up with herself and the spitting universe.

With merciless passion, she pushes down on the centipede row of doors in his mouth as if to break them and bullet slick enamel down his throat. A guttural growl rubs on her glove. She has him by her finger - and,  _ well _ , the three legs impaling him. 

Even herself has been under the volatile mouth. It's full of imbecilic threats and egotistical words, brutish and always loud. His mouth is a nebulous tunnel with dark pink walls that seems to mimic blackish-red. 

“I’ve given up on should have and could have. Did I ever break” - she pushes and a vein of green liquid jets out - “that news to you. No? Well, as of now, I am focusing on what I have, what is mine that has yet been stolen.”

His mouth pulses; he obviously wants to spit something out. Zim has always talked too much - chittering away about his future plans as Tallest in the academy where they once trained before it smoldered to dirt. Novels rest in his brain and fall from his mint lips. With a vigorous hand, she silences all that cacophony. 

“Just like my rightful rank as Invader. Stolen.” 

He starts twisting his head. Watching his fruitless struggle to escape, Tak takes his head into her gloves and squeezes the flesh between her palm. Thumbs reaching, she grabs the skin under his eyes so he can see and hear what she plans to say next.

“Dib.” Something flickers in Zim’s squished face and the thunderstorm under him grows a little louder, metal into rock. With her rawed leather boot, she kicks him in the peach pit of his oily organs. Another streamline of blood jets out, this time contacting her uniform rather than the ground. ‘Jealous’ whispers the action. 

She hopes his reaction is fueled by anger, hers certainly was. She cannot stomach the idea of him being weak enough to yearn for or need a human boy (a child!) to save him like a knight with a prince. “Him. He has stolen something dear to me. My rightful rank.”

“I have been robbed once but I will not be robbed of this. So mark my words.” She leans in, spikes and venom in her motion, knowing his one of many defects is deafness. The tubal worm across her forehead gleams. Her eyes tell him she wants to pop his head like a mosquito through thumbnails. “I will not be stolen from again. My rank as your nemesis shall not go taken. If I can not be an invader, I will be a foe. Do not forget your real enemy is me, Zim. Never forget I am your nemesis.”

He blinks as if promising. 

She lets go of him with only her hands, wipes at too warm blood. He leans forward and there is a smudge of thin space where he can unhinge his Pak leg, slice up, and strike with unwashed metal like a skeletal black mamba. Her eyes move from his quiet lips. She wonders if she is stupid even to try and kiss him again like in military training, staring into dark pink voids.

Then, a magenta beam hits her abdomen where Zim’s pak-legs should have, could have made a mark, but the pain is all the same.

***

Her pak, unused to sleeping, shocks Tak awake. Spasming, her shoulder knocks into one of the broken structures of a vessel and her antennas jolt up like a frightened cat’s tail. She moves, not knowing who or what she is grasping for. “Zim?” Her hands find a metal pole and her legs stand.

Her organs, tight knit like yards of warm wet yarn, rebuild together like a timelapse of breaking ice in reverse. Above her, something rumbles. Through the smoke, she squints at the moving not-star as it decreases in size.

“Don’t forget what I am to you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I did just tag this Dib/Zim for the hits.


End file.
